discussing herons
			
which morning was it 	that or this
you cooked deceivers & honey fungus    slippery jack & penny bun
larch bolete & boletus impolitus for which we have no name

while octobering trees gave their roof-dripping sermons
& parliaments & assemblies of crows & gulls
were whirring & kraaing      whistling & hooting

flighting together & shoaling with starlings
wheeling & rowing from ground to branch
branch to branch food in beak	    denying   arguing

discussing   refuting   engaged in monkish discourse
& all so busy in the air 	a great cacophony
rattling & belling the passing of the day

only the heron straight through this
silent but for wiping sky with her great greycloth wings 	
neck hunched 	  waved in time for which we also have no name

but in the evening	 by Craigallian loch
a broken trout on the broad path		stiff
amid an explosion of scales of shining purpose

before the heron can appear on a river

the river must hold the possibility of a heron

a glimpse of a rose or rose hip

flash of goldcrest or echo of her call

lip roll of water backing against current

the possibility of water or air, unlikely elements

before the heron can appear

there must be a heron shape

dropped into the well of brain

after image of light flash

the river must not rise too high

or the heron will not arrive

when the heron comes to the river

an island appears at her feet

because I opened my eyes from sleep
the cormorant flew past the window

because I paused at the river bank
a kingfisher skimmed upstream

because I sheltered in a holly grove
the rainbow grew in the east

because the kingfisher perched there 
a holly branch leaned to the river

because the river flowed here
the cormorant arched under

the cormorant surfaced under
under the surface under 

holly roots under 
riverbed under

sleep under under
the dusty world